


Shutter Speed

by Annie17851



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:07:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie17851/pseuds/Annie17851
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Near the end of his days, Walter Skinner reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shutter Speed

CLICK 

I can't reach the box of old photos across the room. Age has decimated my ability to motivate even that far, physically at least. Not without great cost to my energy level. I don't need them anyway. My eyelids make a good screen for the pictures my mind can project. 

CLICK 

I see my parents, but vaguely, trying to remember them as they appeared when I was young and dependent. Funny, I can't remember sometimes what I ate for breakfast, or even if I ate at all today, but I can see all the things from years and years ago quite clearly on my private screen. 

CLICK 

I see some school friends, all gone now, I suppose, and a teacher or two. Not too many of them were very memorable. Even as a child I was stern and business like. Good marks for behavior, but not too good in the line of class participation. I was a watcher, like I am now. Like I was then. 

CLICK 

I see them again, now, those young men, older, not much wiser; illicit trysts and petty misbehaviors for those too young to realize the consequences of trying to mature prematurely. 

CLICK 

I see uniforms. My Marine days. Lines, marching, working, not sleeping. I feel the heat and claustrophobia of the jungles. I try to blur past those images, as they are intensely disturbing, even now. Even at this old age, eons later, or so it feels. 

 

CLICK 

Halls of the Federal Building. My office, my pictures on the wall. Such a stern place; such a stern me. Wasted time. 

CLICK 

I see all the agents under my command; very unmemorable, except for those two. Were they like children in my care at first? Maybe, but not later. Not later on. 

CLICK 

I see Mulder, in all his variances of mood; mostly pensive. Some days I had an uncontrollable urge to smack him upside the head, make him see her as she was, so beautiful. He was a unseeing idiot. Some days, I would have done anything BUT smack him on the side of the head. 

CLICK 

I see Scully, my precious Scully. Cool and collected as always, but burning under the veneer she projected. 

CLICK 

I see Scully, in a hospital bed, wan and naked looking; needing more than a miracle. Needing more than the soul I would willingly sell for her. 

CLICK 

I see Scully, her lips coming at me in an elevator, after which I had to turn and berate her publicly for being near me, then retreat to my office to nurse the hard on her nearness and unexpected kiss had given me. Try to close the hole in my heart that being tough with her always opened. 

 

CLICK 

I see Scully, bathed in darkness, bathed in my arms and my warmth and my desire. Fuck Mulder, he was too stupid to make the move. I could choose either one, back then. It was such a different, strange relationship we all had. But Mulder didn't need anything close, he had his own driving dragons and demons to keep him occupied and aloof. 

CLICK 

 

I see making love, moist skin, tasty breasts, lips on me everywhere, heat around my cock. Even now, my stomach turns with sudden, heated desire. Even though nothing else would cooperate these days. 

CLICK 

I see Scully, that last afternoon, before the accident that took her from me, from us, forever. I see the burnished red hair reflecting the light as she turns one last time, saying good bye, saying "Yes, Sir," Always appropriate. 

CLICK 

I see the rest of my life; the empty, awful, Scully less life I led after that. 

CLICK 

I see everything. The pictures in the box would not tell the story anyway. Too posed; too many FBI balls; FBI picnics; FBI funerals. 

I don't need them, where I am going. And I won't need them when I get there, as I know she will be waiting for me. 

I can see her then. 

CLICK 


End file.
